According to a transcript from his radio show, Limbaugh said: "Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them."

In response to his attack, Evelyn Apoko, a 22-year-old who was mutilated by the LRA 10 years ago when guerrillas snatched her from a community centre near her home in Gulu district, Uganda, has spoken of her three-year ordeal.

After the brutal treatment, where she was used as a "human mule", walking through day and night carrying things, she was flown to Texas where doctors reconstructed her jaw, removed scars and helped rebuild her face.

She escaped the LRA in 2004 and was flown to the US the following year.

"Dear Mr. Limbaugh," Miss Apoko responded in a video message, "My name is Evelyn. I am a former abducted child. My heart breaks when I hear your message about the LRA."

She continues: "The LRA is not Christian," she told the talk show host. "Joseph Kony and his commanders could hardly be considered human."

The Lord's Resistance Army began waging war in northern Uganda in 1988. It stands accused of gross human rights abuses over the course of two decades.

Since 2008 Washington has provided more than £25 million in logistical support, equipment and training to "enhance counter-LRA operations" by armies in the region, a spokesman for the State Department said. A year ago, Mr Obama unveiled a plan to disarm the LRA and increase humanitarian access to affected communities.

But these efforts have failed to tame LRA rebels, who are accused of terrorising, murdering, raping and kidnapping thousands of people in four nations.

Its leader Joseph Kony, accused of war crimes and wanted by the International Criminal Court, has dropped any national political agenda and in recent years his marauding troops have sown death and destruction in the region.

Heading a movement based on a mix of religion and brutality, Kony a self-styled mystic and religious prophet, claims to be fighting on divine orders to establish theocratic rule based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.